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tfan
Joined: 31 May 2010
Posts: 9609
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 Posted: 01/11/21 7:55 am ::: The potential Silver Lining of COVID-19: mRNA products |
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mRNA Technology Gave Us the First COVID-19 Vaccines. It Could Also Upend the Drug Industry
COVID-19 sped up the research and development of mRNA vaccines which could lead to advances in fighting other problems
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| The ability to code messenger RNA to do our bidding will transform medicine. As with the COVID vaccines, we can instruct mRNA to cause our cells to make antigens—molecules that stimulate our immune system—that could protect us against many viruses, bacteria, or other pathogens that cause infectious disease. In addition, mRNA could in the future be used, as BioNTech and Moderna are pioneering, to fight cancer. Harnessing a process called immunotherapy, the mRNA can be coded to produce molecules that will cause the body’s immune system to identify and kill cancer cells. |
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FrozenLVFan
Joined: 08 Jul 2014
Posts: 3511
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| Posted: 01/11/21 10:14 am ::: |
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I don't think that's quite true. Research in using mRNA as a delivery system was underway before COVID and would have continued without COVID. COVID has no silver linings, unless it was to show us how badly our public health system needs an overhaul before the next deadly zoonotic disease comes along.
To that end, the NIH has established the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID). One of its goals is to have boots-on-the-ground in areas of the world where there are wildlife who can potentially transmit pathogenic viruses and bacteria to humans, and to identify these organisms before pandemics occur. Having a library of their structure and DNA could potentially allow new vaccines to be made using mRNA technology in under 2 weeks, or at least that's the hope.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/niaid-establishes-centers-research-emerging-infectious-diseases
[That mRNA article also points out that the next two vaccines in the pipeline, AstraZeneca and J&J, use chimp and human adenoviruses, respectively, as carriers of the spike protein rather than mRNA, and that the AstraZeneca trials had significant flaws.]
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